Description

THE SEQUEL TO THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THE BROKEN SHORE, AND WINNER OF THE 2010 MILES FRANKLIN AWARD. 'This year's best thriller' Sunday Times 'A thriller of dazzling richness' Guardian 'Temple's award-winning The Broken Shore was good; this is better' Independent At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city. In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead. Villani's job as the head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad is bathed in blood and sorrow. Incapable of constancy as a father and husband, damaged as a son, his life is his work. Now, over a few sweltering summer days, as fires burn across the state and his superiors and colleagues scheme and jostle, the girl's murder will collide with what seems on the surface to be another brutal gangland slaying and expose the darkness in the city's soul. Loved Truth and The Broken Shore, and want more Peter Temple? Then check out the first of his Jack Irish thrillers, Bad Debts.show more

Review quote

'A thriller of dazzling richness... leaves the reader ravaged, furious and marvelling at his technique... a stunning piece of psychological portraiture' Guardian. Guardian 'One of the world's most distinguished literary crime novelists' Independent. Independent 'Peter Temple's Truth may well prove to be the year's best thriller... It's the fierce energy of Temple's writing that is the book's outstanding feature - the dialogue and linking prose almost vie to outdo each other in brilliance' Sunday Times. Sunday Times 'Doesn't disappoint for a single second' Daily Mail. Daily Mail 'Temple's award-winning The Broken Shore was good; this is better' Independent. Independent 'What makes Temple so compelling is his divine use of language. The novel is written with grace and subtlety, elegant but also violent, dark and yet suffused with sympathy for the protagonists, cast in dialogue that is both distinctive and surprising' Daily Mail. Daily Mail 'With crackling prose and sparkling dialogue, Temple has fashioned a fashioned a fast-paced atmospheric police work of genuine class' Mail On Sunday. Mail On Sunday 'Tautly constructed and compulsively paced... his dialogue is entirely distinctive, full of the mangled poetry and beautiful solecisms of ordinary speech' Observer. Observershow more

About Peter Temple

Five-time winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction, Peter Temple is Australia's most acclaimed crime and thriller writer. His other multiple accolades include receiving the CWA Gold Dagger for The Broken Shore, and the Miles Franklin Award for Truth. He is also the author of the Jack Irish crime novels: Bad Debts, Black Tide, Dead Point and White Dog - a series which has been subsequently adapted for television starring Guy Pearce. Peter Temple lives in Ballarat, Australia, with his family.show more

Review Text

'A thriller of dazzling richness... leaves the reader ravaged, furious and marvelling at his technique... a stunning piece of psychological portraiture' Guardian. Guardianshow more

Customer reviews

Let it be known I have no prior readiong experience with Peter Temple. I opened this book expecting a crime thriller. What I found was something else.
Temple's novel is more about the character than it is about the crime. The crime in effect serves as an excuse to set the stage for an exploration into the mind of the book's main character, head of homicide, Stephen Villani.
Villani is a complex, darkened character, whose personal life is rife with challenges, from his wife to his estranged daughter, all of which stem from the pressures and demands of his highly public and highly stressful job with the police force.
Temple's prose is quick and sharp, though I felt the chapters often passed between flashbacks and the present without prior warning a little too often to follow fluidly.
Overall, however, Temple makes a worthy addition to modern Australian literature.show more